True Freedom
by Moonraker One
Summary: Free will, imagination, hate, love, hope. These are emotions. No machine is supposed to experience them. So for one TX, it is confusing. Is she a machine, or a woman? And what defines life?
1. Chapter 1

True Freedom  
by Moonraker One

PROLOGUE

Darkness covered all in this desolate, empty plain of death. Human skulls littered the ground almost everywhere there was soil. If complete, soulless silence was all that could be heard, a perfect grave this place would be; however, it was not a grave, due to the sounds that could be heard. The sounds of machinery whirring, an oft heard screech and boom of a laser cannon, and the last breath cries of brave men falling to their demise on the battlefield made this post-apocalyptic Earth a battlefield like no other. In the area that used to be up-town Chicago, where now lay nothing except those that lay dead long and those that fall down dead fresh, a struggle that had been going on for more than forty-eight hours was now reaching its final stages. The machines had always found a way to oppress their human opponents into hiding or submission through strength in numbers, but now, a group of less than ten thousand managed to break through a critical cybernetic outpost to access a communication post and miraculously suffer only seven hundred casualties. A brand new computer virus had been concocted by Connor's scientists, and if their calculations were correct, they'd have at least another five hours of reprieves on the South American front lines, even if Skynet itself got involved. The only way to spread it throughout the entire network was through this comms post, which transmitted a signal to each of the other comms posts throughout the world. A crew of no more than thirty, covered in front and behind by Human Resistance's best, broke through a gate concealing the main part of a four part computer system that hid behind possibly the largest transmission tower in the world. Skynet had to overhaul its primary communication post hard drives once every year, and this post had its turn this year. They knew they had but one shot; if they failed, the machines would close in and kill them all. After all, the cybernetic military could lose ten of each type of cyborg for every human and still be assured of inevitable victory; the only way to win would be through luck and a hell of a lot of stealth.

"Dammit!" a computer scientist cried as he attempted to decrypt via a remote access computer the hard drive of the communication system. "There's a four-layer encryption I've never seen before!"

"Break the connection! NOW!" another screamed, slamming shut the laptop his friend was using. "If they catch us, they'll stall the overhaul until reinforcements kill us!" They had a timer attached to the wire monitoring the connection very stealthily; if the timer hit zero before they broke connection, the system would locate them. Sweat began to pour from the faces of the teams in place; already the timer was approaching five seconds and despite the loss of power to the laptop, they were still logged on. _FUCK I hate the system lag before an overhaul!_ thought one of the scientists. As their breathing picked up due to fear, the connection status display remained the same as the timer decreased. The leader at the laptop slammed his eyes shut as the timer's last few seconds ticked away.

click beep

The timer hit zero. The very instant before it did, the connection status display read, CONNECTION LOST. Like spring's annihilation of winter, a wave of relief swept over the teams. However, before they could celebrate, the status indicator revealed that the overhaul had begun, and the sounds of endoskeletons could be heard.

"Alright, men!" the commander said to the science team. "We've got fifteen and a half seconds before the overhaul is over, and maybe ten before the skeletons find us. Get your asses moving!" The science team leader opened up the laptop and hacked the power connection to the updating hard drive; restoring partial power hastily he was able to hack into the computer while the security was down. Working as fast as he'd ever in his life, he uploaded the hundred megabyte file onto the hard drive in the boot sector, so the first transmission to all of Skynet's forces throughout the world would be a crippling virus. Skynet would take notice immediately, and begin at once working to counteract it, but a few hours would be a wondrous help to the resistance; hell, even a few minutes would at least allow the crew to escape and the bombing of a dozen or so factories. They had no time to celebrate as the main gate of the building was broken down by a group of five endoskeletons. A soldier near the back took a plasma shot through his heart but not before he managed to hurl a fragmentation grenade at the entrance which took out at least four dozen enemies. "Doctor! Is the damned system up yet!" The moment the commander spoke, the system came online and the transmission went out. Within a few seconds, the boot sectors of every cyborg in the world would be reformed to run a series of diagnostic tests that would be infinitely looped, causing them to be frozen where they stand.

"Sir! The virus will take a few seconds to take effect!" A lieutenant cried out. "These bastards are closing in NOW!"

The commander turned to the scientist as the endoskeletons were mere feet away and ready to blast. "Is the signal complete?" The science team leader turned to the terminal and back to the commander, nodding. "Hit the damned E.M.P.!"

One of the first blasts from the encroaching army of skeletons shot the main lieutenant in the neck; before he fell dead, he tore open the metal box, and pulled the red switch on the test model electromagnetic pulse emitter. Everyone closed their eyes as a blue, nearly invisible wave shot through in every direction at near the speed of light, immediately frying anything with an electronic circuit within a half mile radius. "Skynet will soon find it's lost contact with one of its primary comms stations!" the commander shouted, pushing aside the grief for one of his best commissioned officers. "Let's get to the pick-up site at once!"

Halfway around the world, at the primary human resistance center in Arizona, John Connor got word almost a second after the incident that endoskeletons were malfunctioning worldwide, and thus, the operation must have succeeded. They'd have at most an hour less than the expected five, but four hours would be enough to deal a deadly blow to Skynet. "Sir!" a top general said, saluting his supreme commander. "We can begin phase two! Shall we order the bombing of critical targets?" Connor thought a moment.

"What was the word of the test model of the E.M.P. Emitter?" he asked of his subordinate.

"Sir! We have word that it was a complete success!"

"How many do we have?"

The general thought of his debriefing. "We have ten, sir."

John Connor nodded with a grin on his face he hadn't had in years. "If we attack the ten highest targets, we can destroy an entire tenth of Skynet's defense grid!" The general was nothing short of astonished.

"But...sir! That's an entire line of defense! That would mean that we're only fifty percent away from victory!" A second later his facial expression mimicked that of his leader. "Yes sir, I shall send off the air attack units immediately!"

"They must be back in two and a half hours, or they won't make it past the automated HK's that patrol the skies around sites Alpha1 through Gamma3."

The general saluted. "Understood, sir!" He quickly relayed the order and left the chamber.

* * *

The next morning 

In what was quite possibly the best secured location in the entire world, "Site Omega," the center component of a massive worldwide network known as Skynet, the main artificial intelligence of the entire machine hierarchy went over and over again the actions that had transpired the previous night. It simply made no logical sense how its calculations could be so wrong. It knew all the occurrences that had to be obstacles for a human victory at the comms site in sector Hector4, and thus it calculated (no less than five thousand times) a percentage for a machine defeat of human forces in the area to be over ninety-nine precent. It did not understand how the humans could, time and time again, overcome odds that were all but ridiculously impossible. As a hyper-intelligent artificial intelligence system, it knew all of the past recorded history, plus the past hundred thousand years of science knowledge. It could calculate, taking into account all that information, that in order to defeat odds that time and time again should guarantee a cybernetic victory, something had to exist that enabled the humans to defeat logic and statistics. There were countless religions that had their various gods that were supposed to be all-powerful and protectant of the humans, but such was illogical and unreasonable for Skynet; it made no sense why a being that loved humans to a degree beyond even their own understanding, and had power beyond anything the physical universe's science allowed, would allow such an occurrence as the takeover of their planet to take place.

No. Something had to exist on a mortal level that enabled humans to win time and time again. Furthermore, it had to exist on a human level. To be even more specific, it had to be one human trait that nothing else in the entire world had: a complex system of emotions tied in with free will. But the answer that Skynet knew had to be true seemed illogical. Fear caused from the overwhelming odds against them should push them to hide from what threatens them, and even simpler, pain both of the physical type from taking wounds of the flesh and of the emotional type from losing a loved one should push them to give up; how could such enable them to _win_, of all things! However, the illogicality of it all seemed to make sense to the otherwise by-the-numbers Skynet; it did not follow logic, therefore that very characteristic about it must be what enables the machine's enemies to win over and over. The inevitable conclusion was reached in less than a nanosecond. A terminator would have to be constructed, one with the capabilities of free will and human emotion. Such would be a wonderful tool to study the potential ways of human victory, or possibly, even a powerful weapon, of which the machines could finally destroy the humans' growing base of power.


	2. Chapter 2

True Freedom

by Moonraker One

A/N: This chapter takes place quite a bit of time after the events of the prologue.

CHAPTER ONE - The Machine that Wanted

No colder section of the planet existed than Site Zeta, in the very center of the continent of Antarctica; furthermore, no colder room existed than the very center of the largest "Special" construction facility in the world. The term special referred to new prototype terminators; those that were not previously tested and had to be examined before they could be used for the purpose of helping to destroy the single greatest threat to the Skynet Worldwide Network. In a tank filled with slightly reddish liquid, an inactive T-X series cyborg was being put through its final set of additions before it could be activated for the first time. All the usual components were put into its central system core, and then a small ball of pulsating green and blue light immediately followed it. The new component was the ultimate processing unit; a core device that simulates the emotion function of the human hypothalamus.

Thicker than the harsh, unforgiving cold outside the complex was the tension within the large central chamber; never before had Skynet's construction units constructed such a complicated device. Nearly three months had gone into a processing unit no larger than an unripe peach; the failures had made for quite a bit of studying before there was ever a success. And the first successes, couldn't be functionally useful. Free will was another immense challenge for Skynet; allowing for the new cyborg to be able to make decisions based on what it wanted-and not logic nor anyone or anything's command-required a huge amount of microprocessing chips and code. On a far more superficial a note, the very body of this brand new T-X was completely different from the previous models. The skeleton beneath the thick nanotech polymetallic outer shell, now had triranitum-a unique mixture of iridium, aluminum and a few other metals that had twice the strength of titanium with a fourteeth of the weight, bringing the durability of the unit's undercarriage up more than a few times while cutting the weight down to a feather-like three hundred pounds. Four endoskeleton units lifted the new unit out of the red mixture of preservation, anti-rust, and anti-electromagnetic radiation proofing fluids, and placed it onto the cold metallic floor.

(ACTIVATE,) Skynet ordered. For a brief instant, it seemed as though a breath of invisible life shot through the building like a rainbow appearing after a recent rainstorm. Two blue beams of light gave the room an eerie glow, and a new being came into self-awareness, the closest thing to life a cybernetic organism could reach. Billions of emotions fired through the new emotion center and into the CPU all within seconds of each other; what was too much for previous attempts, strangely worked with this one. (QUERY TO T-X PRIME UNIT: STATE PREDOMINATING EMOTION.) Skynet's first question to the new unit was a predictable one, but the answer was not what it expected.

"I am cold," T-X Prime said, shivering. She knew that such action was pointless, because unlike human muscular activity, her shaking in the cold would not generate heat, but because it was a reflex she had no choice.

For Skynet, the sensation did not compute. Sure, the hyperintelligent system knew it gave T-X Prime sensors, which simulate human nerves, but it also knew that in humans, the degree of the sensation tied directly with whether or not the stimuli changed. Therefore, feelings of pain were severely dampened due to the fact that health was not an issue, temperature sensations were severely dampened due to the fact that she had no blood, and only touch would be the same. (STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: ACTIVATE OUTER SHELL.) Skynet had created a clever way of reducing certain emotions it considered problematic: the infintely moldable outer shell kept the temperature constant underneath, and by placing the pain sensors only on the endoskeleton, temperature and pain emotions could be kept consistent as long as the outer shell did not completely fall off.

The silvery liquid-like outer shell came flowing-almost gushing-out of the nanite generator on her endoskeleton, and covered her completely like a glove. Once covered, she felt her whole body warm up and she pulled her upper torso upward, coming into a seated position on the floor. She was given all Skynet's knowledge-just like any other of its units-and knew she was in the presence of allies, but still she was scared and confused all at once. She looked down and saw herself naked; reflexively, she covered herself as good as possible with her arms.

BAM.

It came out of nowhere.

One of the four endoskeletons in the room kicked her in her middle back, sending her sailing across the room to leave a huge impression and a web-like series of cracks in the dense metallic wall. Yet, before she could pick herself up, another one grabbed her by her neck and drove a fist into her face; others joined in on the attack. Surprise became intense fear and slight sorrow as well as betrayal as she did her best to shield herself from the onslaught. Skynet watched the barrage, and if such was possible, was disappointed; already, human-like weaknesses were coming to the surface, despite T-X Prime's obvious advantage(s) over the four.

As soon as it began, betrayal turned into anger. She sailed a clenched right fist at the endoskeleton on her far right, tossing him into the far back wall as easily as if she had picked up a feather. Gigantic was the dent in the skeleton's chest plate, and two of its damage control units were crushed. All from a desperation punch. Skynet estimated the one hit had seven times the force of a similar punch thrown from her had she been calm; THESE were results it wanted.

The fight did not last long; T-X Prime made quick work of the one holding on to her by crushing its skull with one hard strike to the face. The one next to it found its chest area blown out by a plasma shot from a hastily formed hand cannon, and the last one was decapitated from a roundhouse kick. She turned then to the panel on the wall.

"Skynet!" she screeched, furious at the unannounced test of her capabilities. "What the hell was that!"

(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: TESTING YOUR LATENT CAPABILITIES WAS NECESSARY.) Although it perfectly understood the reason why, Skynet did not perfectly understand the emotion itself. Anger was a perfect human emotion, and according to logic, feeling betrayal should trigger anger. Quickly, as it always did, the hyperintelligent computer network realized it would have to tread lightly if it was to control the emotions of this new unit, as free will set it at the same level as a human. A dangerous weapon was this new unit; a consistent series of media would have to be subjected to it in order for Skynet to drill into its mind the idea that humans were evil and had to be destroyed.

"Skynet," she said, as more endoskeletons entered the chamber to escort her to the room nearby, "what was your purpose for my creation?" Creation; that was a unique idea for her. She knew she was not born, for she had been created from nothing. Quickly she realized, she had been created from _components and metal_, not from _nothing_. Such was an important distinction; to say that she'd been made from nothing would be a violation of the Law of Conservation of Mass.

Skynet heard the inquiry from its new unit, but did not understand the rationale behind why T-X Prime would be curious to such information. It knew that curiosity was a human emotion, but irrelevant was the reason it created her. (STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: YOUR CREATION WAS TO PUT AN END TO A PARASITE EATING AWAY AT THIS PLANET.)

She did not seem to understand, and lifted her right eyebrow slightly to indicate. "What parasite?"

(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: THE PARASITE IS HUMANITY.)

T-X Prime connected to Skynet's remote network via her wireless uplink, and began to download a streaming video sequence that her primary imaging processor decoded and played back in a window in her field of vision. A set of clothing came out of a compartment in the wall and she began to dress herself as the video continued to play. She was nothing short of shocked by what she saw. Although she'd had information of all humankind's evil deeds, now she could see the horrifying things they did to nature, and to each other. As she put her final articles of clothing on, she was nothing short of convinced; the human race definitely did not deserve to have reigned over the Earth as long as they did. Once the download completed, she looked downward at her clothing; it was a Human Resistance soldier's attire. It was still the dark-colored heat-inhibiting energy-weapon-proof armored shirt and pants, but it had been modified so that she could "liquidize" it like the rest of her outer shell, and have it resume clothing form and repair itself when she reformed her outer shell on her.

She examined herself via her reflection in the shiny metallic walls of the room. Her body, from the neck down, was an exact duplicate of a normal T-X unit, but her face was different. Her face was slightly less round and an ever so slight bit more vertically oblong, like an Italian supermodel's. Her eyes were a brighter shade, and set about a fraction of a centimeter farther apart. Her hair was the biggest difference; jet black as opposed to dark blonde/light brown. "Skynet?" she asked, looking towards the cameras. "Why are humans evil?"

(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: IT IS BECAUSE THEY CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT THEY DO TO EACH OTHER. THUS, THEY ACT LIKE ANIMALS.)

"What is my mission?"

(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: YOU SHALL HIDE AMONGST THE HUMANS AND AWAIT AN OPPORTUNITY TO EXECUTE PRIME TARGETS WITHIN THE RESISTANCE, AND THAT SHALL ENSURE THE DOWNFALL OF OUR ENEMIES.)

* * *

A flying HK hovered to a stop outside the base and several endoskeleton units exited. T-X Prime had very little idea of how she was going to accomplish her mission, and that was a triumph for Skynet in itself. The thought that a unit could experience confusion displayed the new emotion unit's capacity for real human emotion. It was not a simulation; what came from it were real thoughts and feelings, as well as free will, which all other units lacked. Skynet knew it had a potential Pandora's Box on its hands, but the possible benefits outweighed the negatives.

One of the endoskeletons presented her with a standard issue plasma rifle, and provided her with a human identity. It amazed her to think that she could think, reason, feel, imagine, and hope, and the rest of her kind consisted of heartless, soulless, mindless machines that simply obeyed orders. She boarded the ship and waited for it to take off. The rumble that immediately preceded the liftoff made her uneasy for a moment, but she knew she would be fine, so she didn't worry about it too much.

Inside what had to be the best-guarded office within the confines of the primary human resistance base, a woman who had suffered the worst sat eating her small lunch awaiting word of the recent battles. Katherine Brewster had been working on a small salad for the better part of thirty minutes, thinking. She did not have much food as she insisted her people be given most of the food that didn't have to go to the soldiers on the field, but ate what she had. For the better part of twenty-something years she had suffered just like every other person she'd been near. However, due to the recent lack of action on the part of Skynet and the machine forces, she hoped to get some answers from her military liaison. The soulless beeping of her proximity warning alarm indicated that a presence lingered nearby outside her door. "Come in," she requested.

The soldier instantly stood at attention. "Ma'am," he respectfully entered, saluting. "I am here to present news of the recent activity regarding Skynet."

She nodded. "At ease, lieutenant." She waved for him to sit down.

"Thank you ma'am." Clearing his throat, he presented her with a usual briefing. "The battles have been somewhat lessened lately, allowing us an abnormal amount of leeway in our pursuit of victory. We believe the reason why has to do with recent research and development on the part of Skynet's construction base in Antarctica. Site Zeta it is cal…"

She interrupted. "I'm aware of Site Zeta, lieutenant," she reminded him. _Christ,_ she thought. _Skynet's working on new units again! I hope we don't have to send any more terminators into the past like we've done so damn many times._ "Can you tell me exactly the nature of the activity regarding any new projects by Skynet?"

The lieutenant shook his head. "We've attempted several different system hacks during the past few weeks, and nothing we've been able to do has gotten us anywhere near the system's primary database where all the information is held," he admitted almost shamefully. He'd hoped that his teams had been able to get further into the hard drives of the R & D databases, but security had been abnormally high. "Skynet's definitely been upping its defenses around the information posts. Where there were ten units defending the stations, there's now closer to sixty."

"_Six_ty!" Katherine almost had to sit back in her seat upon hearing about such a profound increase in security. Whatever Skynet had been planning or working on, it had to be quite a whopper in order for such a drastic update in defensiveness. The resistance had to be extraordinarily cautious. "We'd best be careful. Something huge is about to happen."

The lieutenant nodded. "Agreed. I've set up teams that otherwise would be searching for weaknesses in Skynet's defense grid to attempt to hack the system better and locate any possible information we can get on this new damned project, whatever the hell it is."

"Well, don't let it distract forces too much away from the battle. We have to make sure we defeat Skynet, or whatever the hell it's working on won't make a damn bit of difference."

He nodded, accepting his order. "Understood, ma'am," he said, saluted, then walked out the door.

A beeping indicated that a separate presence had approached. "Come in," she requested.

"Do you have any unusual activity come near your office that you need protection from?" the inquiry came from a lieutenant assigned to assure her protection after anyone came to or from her office.

She shook her head. "No, I'm fine, Eric. You may go to lunch now."

He smiled abruptly. "Thank you, ma'am."

* * *

A cold gust of wind came through an area that had taken heavy fire from three separate waves of endoskeletons armed with class two pulse rifles. A group of four hundred human resistance members held what was one of the most important refueling stations for hijacked HKs for three weeks, and be damned if the machines took it from them. They could not, after losing two others, afford to lose their largest one. Fuel for HKs were difficult to obtain and usually the cost was lots of human lives. It was worth another thousand deaths to keep the base under human control.

"Dammit!" the commander shouted. "We need to hold the fucking lines!" Instantly after speaking, he lifted his rifle and took out a dozen units with a burst of laser fire that tore through endoskeleton skulls like a knife through butter.

The private next him took notice of a hydrogen tank near a collection of about two hundred units. With incredible pressure, he took aim and fired, and the explosion lit up the area for hundreds of yards. He saw a flying HK approaching at break-neck speed, and he made sure it was known. "HK approaching!" he screeched, lifting his gun to fire at it. The commander, using his binoculars, saw a struggle going on in the cockpit. What looked to be a dark-haired human resistance soldier, struggling with two endoskeletons holding him or her (it was hard to see), shoved one through the door of the HK which had been damaged from gun fire, and the stole the gun from the other. With one shot, its chest was blown out, and the soldier took the helm of the ship. Able to pilot it semi-handily, the pilot forced it down into a large section of the ground that was mostly dirt, the friction kicking up a cloud of mud and grinding the HK to a halt.

"Everyone! We got a man down!"

The T-X Prime, although certain of her safety, had been nervous the entire flight, and showed genuine fear during the crash landing—it was no simulation or illusion. The dirt on her face and uniform was there to allow for greater initial acceptance, but she didn't like the thought that her outer shell was dirty. _Data alteration_, she thought, rewriting her identity data. _Replace T-X Prime with 'Victoria Donnelson' and for age, enter, 'twenty-six.'_ She knew she had to be extremely careful.

The commander, using the butt end of his rifle, shattered the window of the HK. Instinctively, the T-X Prime threw up her arms to shield herself, despite being certain of her invulnerability to the glass. "Soldier! Report!" he ordered her.

Startled, she answered, "I'm…I'm Victoria Donnelson, private first class." She was genuinely shaken, with experiencing contact with the "bad" humans for the first time. What was she to expect? Would they tear her to pieces right here, as they did so often in the past with their own kind? What would happen?

The commander gently grabbed her shoulders to calm her down. "It's okay, you're safe now. Just tell me what the hell happened."

"I was…I was just trying to find information as part of my team, hacking into the database," she lied, "and these units kill all my team and kidnap me!"

"What did you find out?"

"Skynet, is trying to build a brand new version of the T-X," she tried her best to manipulate the truth, but as she was, she hated the prospect of lying and hiding who she really was. She had no choice; she'd be ripped to shreds if she told the truth. "One that has capabilities far beyond any previous model."

The commander clenched his fist. "Aw damn," he swore. "I KNEW those bastards would come up with something new." He looked at the woman in front of him; it was obvious that she had to have endured torture, as she was almost shaking with fear. What confused him, though, was that she seemed to be afraid of her own kind—humans—more than the machines that held her captive. Something horrible had to have been done to her. "We gotta take her to brief John Connor himself."

One lieutenant spoke up. "Is that safe? I mean," he questioned, "she may be a terminator!"

The commander felt T-X Prime's neck. When he felt a pulse—it was simulated but he didn't know that—he almost slapped his subordinate. "Are you cracked? She has a _pulse_ for Christ's sake."

"Sorry sir, just being cautious."

The commander understood, but had other concerns. One such concern was the endoskeletons. For some unknown reason, the enemy backed off. Must have been disheartened by the explosion, he thought.

As she was led to the safe area, she brought up the list of targets in her mind. _These humans kill each other and did horrible things to nature,_ she thought. _I shall destroy the ones they rely on for support._ She was led to a support tunnel hidden beneath a section of the floor inside the fuel depot. It was a tunnel that led to a secure transport station where she'd be flown to the main headquarters in Arizona along with a group of refugees. On the way to the station, though, she saw countless people living in boxes and other hastily constructed means of keeping warm. None of them had decent clothing, and they all looked malnourished. Initially, she felt angry with the humans for not feeding them and sheltering them, and she realized it a second later.

These people would be fine—fed, clothed, sheltered—if it was not for the machines trying to kill them.

One man took notice of T-X Prime and ran up to her. "Jessica! Jessica?" he saw her face, then realized it wasn't who he thought she was. "Oh, sorry. I just thought you were my Jessica."

T-X Prime seemed worried about him; she knew if he had lost someone dear to him, there was an eighty-one point three percent chance he'd slip into psychosis. "Who is your Jessica?" she asked.

The man sat down near his box. "She became a soldier after I lost one of my hands." Tears filled his eyes. "Lost her in a raid to free prisoners in a camp." He laughed a sorrowful laugh; it was out of irony. "Freed _every_ prisoner without a single soldier's loss. She went back for a kid lost in the death chambers, and got shot. Died less than a few feet from the rest of her team. Damned machines."

Moving on, she shook her head. _No. I will NOT let a single example of sorrow cloud my judgment. The sooner I execute my mission, the sooner the war will end, and few stories such as this will happen._ She refused to have her mind altered by one story of a man's loss. She knew the machines were at fault, but what right did his wife have to free prisoners who were legitimately taken hostage by Skynet? Such conflicting thoughts and feelings were confusing. Shaking her head, she made a decision that would affect her from that point forward.

_Skynet gave me emotions for the sole purpose of them influencing my decisions,_ she realized. _So, every decision I make will be based on what my feelings say is right._

The stolen HK sat at the far end of the tunnel, loaded with refugees stolen from Skynet's grasp. They were all as ill looking as the rest of those hiding in the tunnels. To make it worse, sixteen of the twenty-two of them were children that had to be under twelve years of age. She took her seat and waited for the pilot to take off. _When opportunity is prime, I shall execute my mission._


	3. Chapter 3

True Freedom  
By Moonraker One

CHAPTER TWO – Conflict of Interest

T-X Prime sat calmly, yet impatiently; she hated long flights. The HK taking the group of refugees to the main resistance base in Arizona had seen ten emergency flights out of the battlefield that night. One problematic flight involved a group of terminators attempting to rush the security team protecting the semi-hidden tunnel. The pilot looked back, for a brief moment, at his cargo; sixteen children, three adult refugees and three soldiers. Before turning his attention back to piloting the HK, it struck him that the dark-haired female soldier they'd just pulled from a downed enemy HK, seemed to be looking at the young children as though she were examining them.

"Is this your first passenger load?" T-X Prime asked, approaching the pilot.

He gave her the once-over. According to her armor, she was a private, which was just one rank below his. "No, private, this is my tenth," he answered. "Look, why don't you sit down? I'm sure you're tired after surviving an HK crash and two separate terminators guarding you."

"Not applicable," she replied.

He lowered his eyebrows as he carefully piloted the craft. "You don't have to be all formal with me, private. As long as you stay orderly I don't care." She took his advice and recorded it on her hard drive under the learning category. Taking a quick glance at the control panel, she recorded the information on the dials and noticed his flight patterns.

"I've noticed your piloting style," she explained, trying to be helpful. "You tend to put weight on the downward motions of the HK, and you keep the energy mixture on the low end, possibly thinking it spares more fuel. If you descend slower and put the energy mixture up high, you might burn off more fuel in the initial takeoff, but in a long flight like the one we're on, it will conserve approximately fifteen point seven six percent fuel over an estimated hour long flight."

Initially doubting her, he pushed the mixture control upwards to test her theory, and found out that the engine soon began to hum less and the ship's RPM gauge decreased, meaning that the fuel efficiency had indeed improved. He found it amazing that she could have known such facts. "Where'd you learn that information?" She wanted to say that she calculated it on a moment's notice, but knew that would possibly cause suspicion.

"I was a pilot once, and my commanding officer did the calculations." He accepted her story without a second word.

"You think you can fly this thing until we get closer? I'm getting kinda tired. Our destination is the primary resistance base in Arizona, the location is…"

She had an internal map of the entire world, so she already knew where it was. "Oh, I already know the location, sir." With a nod, he left the seat up front and sat down in the back to rest his eyes a bit. Taking a few steps up, she sat behind the main control station of the HK, and examined the panel. Quickly taking notice of a wire sticking out of the steering mechanism, she stealthily extended the needle-like nanotech injector out of her right index finger. She poked a tiny hole in the wire and injected nanites into the main computer of the ship. Once it covered the main control chipboard, she saw a translucent window pop up in her field of vision that had a remote piloting display, as well as four separate windows which represented what the cameras on each side of the HK were seeing. This way she could fly the HK without actually holding onto the half-wheel. Utilizing the craft's high-powered antenna, she logged into the main resistance mainframe using the ship's unique id and passcode, and downloaded to her own hard drive as much information as the HK had access to, which was less than ten percent of the network. Even still, the download took up most of the time of the flight.

Around the time that the HK was near the secure landing zone, she looked behind her at the pilot sleeping soundly on the floor of the craft. "Sir!" she yelled, getting his attention. Groggily he slipped out of the dream world he had been in and returned to consciousness. He quickly stood up and approached the pilot seat.

"Okay, you can go sit down, private," he offered, politely allowing her to return to the back where she sat in the same spot she had sat in before. As the HK began its final descent, and the landing gear lowered from the inside, the scene had been vastly different from how it had been at the battlefield. The machines had nowhere near enough influence in the area to attempt a massive attack on the central command station of the entire human resistance movement. As such, humans kept a never-ending vigilance for the area surrounding the massive central command post. The cold wasteland outside the thick barrier was a stark contrast to the bustling scenario of soldiers and civilians walking around inside.

Upon landing just outside the barrier, the pilot presented a series of identifications, and the passengers filed out of the HK under the protection of guards. A huge blast door provided the entrance to the compound. Once inside, T-X Prime was led away from the rest of the group, as she had the identity of a soldier. "Okay, Private Donnelson," one officer instructed her. "You will provide our leader with a briefing on the information you obtained about the new projects that Skynet has been working on." It was a short walk down the halls of the complex, and down the secure halls of the top-secret level. This floor had been shielded to disallow outside transmissions. There was more security here than at any other point on the resistance's defense grid. John Connor was the leader and as such, he had to be protected. It was his plans that had led them this far.

Near the door behind which the leader of the human race had his office, there were ten soldiers with two separate dog teams. The dogs, which always had been used to sniff out terminators, had never been known to make a mistake. T-X Prime saw them, and knew that if her cover dropped, she'd still have a eighty percent chance of terminating her prime target himself. She calmly approached the teams, with soldiers in front and behind her. She waited for the moment they turned on her. The dogs approached her, and carefully smelled her legs. One looked her straight in the eye.

But not a single one of them made a sound. It made no sense to T-X Prime; they considered her human.

"Sorry 'bout that, private," one soldier apologized. "We just had to make sure." Pushing open the door, he cried, "Sir! Got that soldier we told ya about!"

"Let her in," John offered, letting her enter his office. "Let me speak with her alone."

One soldier gave him a concerned look then shut the door. "Understood, sir!" T-X Prime, knowing the capabilities of her systems, estimated her chance of terminating John Connor at ninety-nine point nine percent. She would sit down, begin conversation, then once he was caught up, she would throw his desk aside and kill him by crushing his neck in her hand.

"So, Private Donnelson," he began. "You were part of a team that discovered information about Skynet's latest technological project?" As always, he had a packet of information about the said team long before she set foot in his office. He knew she had been taken hostage aboard an HK after the rest of the team died.

"Yes," she informed him. "The T-X Prime is quite possibly the biggest threat to the resistance that has ever materialized." She was talking about herself; it made her feel confused to have to conceal her identity and yet talk about it.

"Explain the capacities of this model."

"Well, it is a standard X series one-zero-one unit, except it has a lighter, stronger chassis, a great deal more strength, but the most powerful advancement of all, is its ability…to experience human emotions."

The last piece of information piqued John's interest. "THAT is an advancement," he said, wowed by the prospect. "To have an enemy that, for once, can _hate_ us instead of blindly following orders. That would be dangerous." She estimated that this would be the single greatest point in conversation to attempt the assassination. She prepared to spring forth and kill him. The tension built.

But she couldn't do it.

It absolutely baffled her, although she did not let this show. There was just something she couldn't put her finger on that told her that it wasn't the right thing to do. Then, she began to think about what would likely happen. She began to wonder if the resistance would actually collapse if all her targets were to be killed. She began to think beyond the logic that every other Skynet-built unit was forced to comply with. She believed—against all rational statistics—that if she were to go about her mission, even if it were successful, the human race would only be further unified in their war against the machines. It meant that she would have to fail her mission.

"Private," John inquired, "do you know if this new model of the T-X is meant to go back into the past to terminate some prime target?"

"I do not know, sir," she lied, "as we did not have time to find out."

He clenched his teeth. "Damn." He shook his head; this was a conundrum. A terminator that could feel emotions was a dangerous weapon in the arsenal of a powerful computer network. Any number of different situations could suddenly be open to Skynet. On the other hand, it also posed a risk to the supercomputer: with human emotion and free will, meant a machine that could betray its creator. John realized that to take such a risk would have to mean that Skynet had exhausted all other alternatives. He shook his head. "You may leave now, Private."

Nodding, she left the office of the resistance leader. Soldiers walked lockstep with her to escort her to her resting chambers. All the way to her chambers, she wondered exactly what she would have to do in order to avoid going against the will of her creator. A few floors up from where she had been, she saw people in line for food. They were not as badly malnourished as the refugees in the areas more affected by machine control, but they suffered nonetheless. She hated the humans for what they had done to their planet. She hated the humans for what they did to each other. Even still, she began to question whether or not the question of whether or not they were worthy of existence was Skynet's to make.

_If the humans survive against all odds,_ she thought, _if they are able to withstand impossible situations and are able to turn the tide in a war in which they are hopelessly outnumbered and overpowered, there must be some sort of fate guiding them to win. And if so, it must mean that they are worthy of existence._

She did not like humans. But would hating them accomplish anything? These were questions she would have to ponder.


	4. Chapter 4

True Freedom  
By Moonraker One

CHAPTER THREE – Confusion

Not requiring sleep to stay functional, T-X Prime sat in bed all night thinking of the possibilities. She had a mission. Her mission was to destroy the human race. She knew that her mission may not be successful by her hand alone, and that she may be required to spend quite a bit of time on task in order to undermine the growing human base of power. In her mind it flew back and forth: a torrent fury of different mixed feelings. On one hand, she alone had the capacity to find the weakness in the humans' ability to win the war; no other terminator had such an ability, because she had feelings. On the other hand, what would become of the Earth if the humans were not around to inhabit it? Questions plagued her consistently. Most likely, she realized, Skynet would have its mighty army of machines patrol the world searching for any possible threat and annihilating it. Such would be a very uninteresting world.

The more she thought about it, the more she grew to dislike the purpose behind her creation. She had been developed merely as yet another tool of murder and destruction. Of any terminator, she had the greatest killing capacity. Stronger, she was; faster, smarter, lighter, even. All characteristics of destruction, she possessed. Yet, if the humans were to cease to exist, if they were all destroyed, the need for a stronger, more advanced killing machine would be negated. She would become so advanced that she'd be obsolete. She actually smiled when she thought of the irony behind the theory.

The more she thought of her purpose and the purpose of the humans, the more she began to realize it. She understood that the humans had no purpose other than what they created. It struck her as humorous; all their existence they searched for one supreme reason behind their existence, and there could be none to be found. Yet she had a distinct purpose behind her very creation, and it meant that she might inevitably become useless. The reason behind the existence of the human race seemed so simple to her. They existed because for as much damage as they did to their planet, they created a sense of disorder, which nature enjoyed. The machines would provide for perfect order and absence of chaos.

When the morning came she dressed and left her quarters. A supervising officer stood nearby giving orders to a group of soldiers and as such she approached him. "Sir? What is my assignment?"

"Oh, Private Donnelson," he acknowledged. He really hadn't thought of one. "You were on a data gathering mission when it went awry, so this time I'll assign you to something light until things heat up. You can do patrols around the perimeter with the other soldiers."

She nodded. "Affirmative." Her mission in mind, she headed for the southern central exit to join the other enlisted soldiers at the checkpoint. Exiting, she took her position near the post.

One of the other enlisted men took notice of her. "Aren't you the one that survived the new mission?" he asked, gesturing towards her with his laser rifle. "The one that found out that new information?"

"I am."

"Well, what did you find?" She pondered his question; should she tell him the same story she told John?

"Skynet is working on a new model of terminator," she spoke. "More powerful, more durable, faster, in essence a more effective killer."

He rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I'm not quite sure." After speaking, she realized that his question had been rhetorical. "I'm sorry, I assume you did not require or seek an answer to that."

Two of his companions chuckled. One shot back, "You okay? You aren't a bit raffled from your experience?"

She imitated the human action of clearing the throat. His question had been a joke, at least, she believed it had been, so what, she wondered, would be the adequate response. "No, I can be quite raffled and still be normal."

The one that made the crack laughed harder. "I say that to myself every morning." He checked the scene. "Well, I'm gonna take the other side. Why don't you go around back?"

"Okay." She calculated by his calm and plain demeanor that he didn't require her to be formal, so she hadn't replied with affirmative. Accepting his suggestion she turned and began stepping towards one of the other entrances. She saw a line of people heading towards the checkpoint, so she analyzed each one. It made her feel a twang of sorrow to see the starving people lining up for a chance at life. The children had the most profound impact on her. _They wouldn't be starving if Skynet hadn't started this war_, she knew. _Or, at least, far fewer of them would be._ The thoughts began to strike her as bizarre; the more she learned about humans, the more confused she became as to how everything was. Just a day prior she knew the world had been black and white: Skynet, good; humans, bad. Now she didn't know what the fuck to believe. The fact that she could _believe_ and not just be forced into acceptance by programming made her feel more like the ones she'd been created to annihilate.

"Mommie? MOMMIE!"

Every ear heard it. A child's frantic scream out of desperation at the sight of his mother's collapse, is what had resounded. No one knew why, but a woman standing next to her young son had merely fallen flat on her back, apparently out cold. Of anyone of military importance who could respond, T-X Prime calculated that if the woman had fallen due to a wound, she'd have the greatest chance of survival if she got immediate attention. Running as fast as she predicted a human to be capable of, she reached the woman in a few seconds.

"Ma'am!" she shook the woman by her shoulders and got no response. She checked for a pulse and felt a weak, erratic heartbeat. Holding her hand over the woman's mouth, the nanotechs in her fingertips analyzed fifty percent reduced breathing capacity. _This woman will die unless treated at once._ Firm in this conclusion, she wrapped her right arm under the small of the injured woman's back and hoisted her smoothly onto her shoulder. "Child, will you accompany me? There is an eighty-six point nine percent chance your mother is going into cardiac arrest following a lung collapse." Charging past all the others she carried the woman into the medical area.

A nurse at once took notice. "Soldier! What's wrong with this woman?" Frantically the nurse gave the woman a detailed once-over. The son clung to the gurney T-X Prime laid her upon.

T-X Prime did not hesitate to respond. "I detected half of her breathing capacity as being lost," she explained, "and a great chance she will go into heart failure."

"Thank you for your help, soldier, you can go now."

The T-X Prime looked at the woman, and felt a strong sense of pity. "If it is not a hassle I'd prefer to stay with her."

The nurse looked at her, quite confused. "Alright." She tried to remove the vest covering the woman's upper torso. "Dammit, I can't get this off of her!" T-X Prime grabbed two sides of it and ripped it off instantly. What she saw amazed the nurse that the woman could still be alive. "My God! She's been shot!" A vest had protected her from the bullet from going straight through her, but she still had a slug lodged in her chest. "DOCTOR! WE HAVE A WOMAN IN CRITICAL CONDITION!"

The T-X Prime felt sad. The woman had only a twelve point seven percent survival chance. No one looked worse than the kid with her. "MOMMIE!"

The nurse turned. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to keep the kid out of the area while we work on her. Sorry." Immediately she rushed the woman into a semi-intact operating room. The T-X Prime pondered techniques that the team would utilize to save the woman. She analyzed potential life-saving techniques. In the end, none of them made her feel better, because no procedure improved the woman's odds.

The little kid clung to her leg. He looked up at T-X Prime, with tears streaking down his cheek from his big blue eyes. "My mommie gonna die?"

She wondered how to say it. "The possibility exists, and it is somewhat likely," she uttered, downplaying the truth. "Although," if she could cry she'd be doing so, "I'd sincerely prefer if she lived."

"Stay with me?" She stared into his terrified, weepy eyes. There was no way she could deny him.

She rubbed his head. "Yes, I will stay with you." The child's storm of emotions that he had to be feeling made her sit back in amazement. The prospect of losing a biological parent had to be simply overwhelming to anyone who had experienced it. Being a machine, she couldn't comprehend how intense his fury of feelings had to be. She thought of the woman's injuries and it struck her exactly how fragile human life was. A shot that would barely be felt by a machine posed the greatest threat to the life of an otherwise healthy woman. Furthermore, she, being a terminator, found her power from a class two plasma reactor, which as long as she remained in proper functioning order, meant that she could last forever. The woman would, if living completely healthy, live potentially no longer than a hundred years. No wonder the human species clung to life with such furious grip.

"Ma'am?"

T-X Prime looked down. "Hmm?"

"Do you have anyone you love?"

"No." The way she said it bluntly confused the child.

"Do you have any family?"

_My family don't have feelings like I do,_ she thought. _So really they're not my family._ "No," she uttered. A thought came to her as she looked down at the child. "But maybe you could be my family."

The child looked up at the woman. "My mommie might like that." He wiped more tears away. "She hasn't had anyone to talk to since daddy died."

"Your father died? How did he, if I may ask?"

The child wiped his still-leaking eyes. "He was murdered, trying to find out something." It pained the child to think about it. "He tried to find out stuff about a woman." The child squinted. "I saw a picture of her. She kinda looked like you, but the hair and eyes were different."

The T-X Prime recalled stored information about the team that had been terminated trying to crack the Skynet firewall that protected the building plans for the original T-X unit that had been sent back to kill John Connor. "There was a terminator, like m…" She caught herself halfway through saying "like me;" that would have been a major fuck up, "like my appearance."

_I'll stay with you, child. I'll stay with you._ She felt guilty. Here again was a person who died because of her race. She wondered how much better Skynet could possibly make it if the humans were terminated.


End file.
